Happy new year readers! For my first post of the new year, I wanted to review last year’s blogging goals and set myself some new ones for the year. Setting goals helps me to plan, feel organised, and having something to aim for really pushes my motivation.

I’m really happy and pleased with how far Latte Leanne has come over the past year. I’ve moved to self-hosted WordPress (which you can read about here), been to blogger events and made some lovely blogging friends too! Here are my 2017 blogging goals.

Christmas songs are one of my favourite things about this time of year, which I mentioned inyesterday’s post! They instantly lift my mood and get me into the festive spirit. I’m always on the search for new Christmas playlists and I thought, why not create my own?!

Here are 20 songs to make you feel all Christmassy, Ultimate Christmas Playlist if you like, with some classics and more recent songs thrown in! Play it at your Christmas party or a night-in with your loved ones, there’s something for everyone.

In the middle of October, this blog turned one year old. One year since I was stressing about my first year of university, my (lack of) career plans and my lack of hobbies and extracurriculars. I realised that I had a new found love for beauty and makeup, and having watched Zoella since I was about fourteen or fifteen, I of course decided to start a blog.

I had no idea how much I would love blogging when I started. It felt so good to have a creative outlet where I could write about whatever I wanted. My first post was a general university post, and after my October Beauty Favourites I decided I wanted to write a beauty blog.

I went to the East Midlands Blogger Meetup on Saturday in Leicester and had the best time. I met so many lovely bloggers and left feeling more inspired to write than ever! The event was held at Manhatten 34, not too far from the train station and was a perfect fit for the event. The whole theme and decor of it was perfect for a blogger meet up (everything was so nice to photograph?!) and fit all 40 bloggers inside well without being too crowded!

Before going to the event, I met up with some bloggers at Leicester train station and we all walked to Bru together for a pre-meetup! After living in Leicester for a year, I have always walked past Bru and thought I really must go there.

Last weekend, me and my friends all travelled down south to spend a few days together and on Saturday we went to Brighton! I have always wanted to visit Brighton and I am so happy that we finally went. It was such a lovely day; exploring all of the independent shops down the Lanes and walking along the seafront (just to find beach huts). I took my camera and have so many photos, I just had to write a post and share them with you in an A Day Out in Brighton post!

Note: This post will probably end up being more of a photo diary than an actual post, so I apologise haha!

Sheffield Vegan Festival

Yesterday I attended the first Sheffield Vegan Festival held at Cutler’s Hall in Sheffield city centre. I met up with the lovely Vicki and we had an amazing day out! We had a lot of fun exploring the different stores and sampling vegan beauty, food and discovering many new vegan brands too.

I have been on a vegetarian diet for nearly two and a half years now which isn’t something I’ve mentioned on my blog before! Going vegetarian was honestly one of the best things that I’ve done for myself. I stopped eating a lot of things which I had come to hate and completely removed meat from my diet. More and more I have been researching the benefits of removing dairy too and I am so excited to do it! I thought what better way to continue my research than to attend the first Sheffield Vegan Festival.